Campaign Launch - Ready to Win

Today I launched Labour's election campaign at the Viaduct Events Centre, Auckland. Here is the speech I gave.

E rau rangatira ma

E te whanau o te roopu reipa

Piki mai, kake mai haere mai

Te tangi a te pipiwharauroa

Te Po

Ka Awatea!

Whiti ao - whiti ao - whiti whiti Ao

Hello Labour

Hello New Zealand

Today is about you. It is about the launch of your future, your vision, your belief in creating a better New Zealand.

This election is going to be about a choice – probably one of the clearest that we have had as a country in a generation.

And it’s not just about two leaders, or even a contest between two parties.

This election is fundamentally about two very different pathways totwo very different futures for New Zealand.

It’s a choice between prosperity for all, or only for a few.

It’s a choice between a new path to a higher value, more sustainable future, where every person matters. Or the current path of selling ourselves short and deepening the divides.

I believe - every one of us in the Labour Party believes - that it is people that matter most.

That, at the end of the day, we are all worth exactly the same.

And I believe that our people are a community, and are not commodities.

I believe that when the least fortunate of us does better, we all do better.

I believe that in this country nobody should be left out or left behind.

But I also believe that New Zealand has lost its way.

That after another 3 years, heading in the direction we’re heading, we just won’t know this country.

Our rivers will be dirty. What’s left of our assets will be sold. And so will vast tracts of our land. We will be tenants in our own country.

Is that the choice we want to make?

I don’t think so.

Labour refuses to stand by and letthis generation of young New Zealanders become the first to do worse than their parents.

It wasn’t that long ago that we were considered to be the small, smart jewel of the South Pacific.

A creative, plucky country punching well above our weight. Where everyone could dare to dream the Kiwi dream, where if you worked hard and played by the rules - everyone, not just some, could get ahead.

We need to reclaim that vision, and make it our own again.

We can and we will.

We will do it for the mother of two teenage boys who works 60 hours a week cleaning and cannot sleep from worry that she doesn’t have enough time to keep them on the rails.

We’ll do it for the little kid in West Auckland admitted to Starship because of respiratory disease caused by the black mould growing in the bedroom in his cold, damp home.

We’ll do it for the professional couple in Christchurch who’ve been waiting for three years for the insurance cheque that means they can finally move on with their lives.

And for the grandmother who sits in her cold flat wrapped in blankets because she cannot pay both the power bill and the doctor.

We’ll do it for the small manufacturer who is laying off workers – his own mates – for the third time as his business slowly, but surely, goes under, due to the high Kiwi dollar.

A Labour government will make New Zealand a fairer place, and a better place.

By strengthening the right of every New Zealander to have a warm, dry, comfortable home.

By strengthening, not neglecting, support for our schools, hospitals and universities.

By building, not deferring, a high-value, high knowledge, sustainable economy that will create good jobs.

It’s called a better New Zealand.

Decent jobs are at the core of any decent society. It’s what we in Labour have always stood for.

These policies, like all our policies, have been carefully costed as part of our fiscal plan.

It’s budgeted, it’s paid for, it’s there in black and white.

So when our opponents try to claim that we can’t afford better healthcare for New Zealanders – and they’ll try - they won’t be being honest with the public.

And they know it.

Labour’s vision for New Zealand is to build the fairest, most decent society in the world.

The choice to come

What this election is fundamentally about is a choice. And it’s all of our choice.

New Zealanders, we can choose decent jobs for all.

We can choose great education for all.

We can choose kids growing up healthy, warm, and well fed.

We can choose an economy where people can pay their bills, and meet their mortgages and get ahead.

And of course we can choose decent healthcare for those who need it.

Together we can choose to build a society where there is fairness for all New Zealanders, not just the top few percent. Where everyone has the opportunity and aspiration to reach all our potential.

But, sadly, the path our country has been on won’t get us there.

It cannot. It will not.

The current path doesn’t live up to the truest Kiwi values of fairness, decency and respect. Those values that made our country great.

We need to apply those values to the new world of the 21st century so we can build a future where we all succeed together.

I know it’s easy to be cynical about elections. About the sideshows, about the relentless negativity.

And every election we hear voices telling us that there is no alternative and nothing will ever change.

That the problems are all someone else’s fault, or they’re all too hard to solve.

That we should just be happy with what we’ve got because fairness and decency is too much to ask for, and we shouldn’t rock the boat.

We’ve seen where politics as usual gets us.

We’ve seen more children in poverty, more people locked out of home ownership, more families finding their incomes cannot keep up with the rising cost of living.

We know that we can do better. We know we can deliver change for a better New Zealand.

In this election, we can change all of that together.

This election is going to be very close. The choice is here, the choice is now, the choice is real, and it’s ours to make, starting today.

If we want to change the path our country is on, we have to change the government first.

In this election we can chose to lift kids out of poverty, to put our people back to work, to create new businesses, to harness new technology. We can choose to build new homes, support our families and, together, build the fairest, most decent society in the world.

We can choose to do this. We can do this together.

If you want to build a better future for your family and your country.

If you want an end to politics as usual and to build a New Zealand that works for everyone.

If you won’t settle for the past and you want to reach for the future.